


merry now at your expense

by Nakimochiku



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Minor Levi/Erwin Smith, Minor Mikasa Ackerman/Annie Leonhart, Multi, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4616598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're kinda like Robin Hood and his merry men."</p>
<p>"We steal from the system and keep for ourselves, that's just normal theft."</p>
<p>Or, They do what they have to in order to get by, and sometimes that means breaking a couple rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	merry now at your expense

When Eren is eight, he notices that Mikasa tends to get the things she subtly yearns for. Sometimes she will consider a pack of Starbursts, for just a moment longer than her usual cursory look. When they leave the convenience store and round the corner, Levi will produce the packet and Reese’s cups and an Oh Henry! bar like magic, and dole out the treats, while taking delicate happy bites of his own.

It takes a long time for Eren to even question when Levi had the time to pay for the candy, until he realizes abruptly that Levi doesn't.

"Where’d you get these?" Eren asks, shaking his Reese’s cup under Levi’s nose and making a distraught noise when he mercilessly bites off a piece.

"The store." He says enigmatically, chewing.

"Yeah, but when? You never went up to the cashier." On the loveseat across from them, Mikasa pauses in sorting her Starbursts. Levi shrugs. Eren crawls into his lap to observe him properly. Levi is thirteen, he wears fashionable t-shirts from high end stores that Mikasa picks out for him and well worn jeans from the thrift store. He always looks neat and put together. "Isn't stealing wrong?"

"Depends." Eren waits patiently for him to explain. "I don’t feel bad for cheating the system. They make it easy. If they have something I want and they don’t protect it, why shouldn’t I take it?" Eren nods along, but he doesn’t think he understands. Mikasa snorts a soft noise, and selects a watermelon candy to chew. Later she will split the strawberry flavoured ones between them, since she doesn't like them. "I would never steal from friends though. That’s a betrayal of trust. That’s the kind of thing you deserve to go to jail for."

*

"Careful." Eren tugs at Levi’s sleeve, and glances surreptitiously in the direction of the sales clerk who trails along behind them, fixing displays and picking up articles that have dropped on the floor. Levi grunts and holds up a truly unfortunate shirt for approval. Across the store Mikasa makes a face at him. "That girl’s been following us for a little bit."

Levi tucks the ugly shirt back onto the rack and takes Eren by the hand, slipping the slim chain of a necklace between their palms, calling out, "hey cottontail; you wanna go for ice cream?" from across the store. He seems cool and calm, and Hange's head pops up over the top of a rack like a gopher.

"Yeah!" She agrees, and wraps one hand around Mikasa’s shoulder, hurrying out towards the door at a pace that is neither panicked nor leisurely. When Eren dares peek behind them, he notices a security guard trailing them.

"Dude." Hange gasps when they are safely out in the parking lot. The front of her sari is gaping strangely, and Eren wonders what she managed to hide in its thick folds. "You cottontail-ed. What happened?"

"Clerk was watching me like a hawk, Eren noticed."

"I think she saw you rip off a tag and was waiting for you to do something." Eren adds. The chain of the necklace is still pressed between their palms, and Eren realizes abruptly he helped Levi steal it. After that, it’s easy.

* 

The parking lot is dark. The mall is boring after the first hour and a half, but somehow they always manage to spend at least three, wandering in and out of stores. In the back seat, Levi overturns a paper Holister bag, spilling his haul in his lap. He is eighteen, and his behaviour is no longer cute-teenage-delinquency.

"What’ve we got?" Hange chirps from the driver’s seat, swinging the wheel around just this side of wildly, sending them careening out of the parking lot.

"Kat Von D lipstick for Hange and Mikasa--"

"What?" Eren gapes. "Literally when did you even get that, I was with you the entire time!"

"When Mikasa was asking about toner in Sephora."

Levi keeps rummaging in his bag. He tosses out T-shirts and socks, skirts and panties, jewellery and makeup to be divided up amongst them like the spoils of war. Things that are a little too big or small get traded, and they come away from their dealings with a small pile of treasures and an entire new outfit.

“We’re kinda like Robin Hood and his merry men.” Hange says with a laugh. She is rolling a blunt to smoke later, but Eren thinks she’s almost always high. Levi shoots a glare at her, and she tucks her weed away with a placating palms up gesture.

“We steal from the system and keep for ourselves.” Mikasa says, trying on her new earrings. All ten of her fingers glittering with new rings. “That’s just theft.”

“None of you guys have any sense of poetry. We steal from the rich, and we are the poor. Robin Hood and his merry men.” She tosses a wadded up shirt at Levi’s head at a red light, and he snatches it out of the air before it can hit him. “That’s what we should dress up as for halloween. How do you feel about green tights, Levi Hood?”

“Green tights is Peter Pan, Pehngi.” Hange makes a face at him in the mirror, she has long given up trying to tell him to stop calling her cross-eyed in Punjabi, a phrase he picked up from her mother. “Besides, who would you be?”

"The fat monk guy obviously.” Hange cackles.

Levi kisses his teeth, affectionate. “You’re blasphemous.”

*

"I don’t like him." Eren says vehemently, while Erwin kisses Carla on both cheeks. "He's fucking _bougie_." Levi lifts one brow and doesn't say anything, the kind of meaningful silence that tells Eren he doesn't agree, but isn't in the mood to argue. "You don't think he's bougie?" He gestures wildly in Erwin’s direction, at his slacks folding neatly at the cuffs and his button down shirt rolled to to the elbows and the glitter of a fossil watch on his wrist, straddling the line between professional, and lazy, to create something artful instead. Eren thinks he looks pretentious to the core, and when he turns to them both and smiles pleasantly, he screws his face up in a sneer. "I've never seen him in the same pair of TOMS twice."

"Why've you been paying so much attention to his shoes?" Levi retorts dryly, tipping his face up to accept Erwin’s sweet kiss on his mouth, Eren’s expression curling in disgust.

"Because I want a pair, but all I have is a pair of fake TOMS from Ardene’s that you originally got for Mikasa." He glares at Erwin like he personally nailed christ to the cross. "I have to make do with fifteen dollar hand-me-down, bootleg TOMS and meanwhile this asshole has at least five different pairs. Did you know they send shoes to starving children in Africa with the money spent on these? He can afford five pairs of real TOMS, and I am the starving children in Africa."

Levi rolls his eyes. “You’re a fourth generation immigrant, Malcolm X. Relax.”

Erwin watches this all with the kind of morbid amusement one saves for episodes of America’s Funniest Home videos, the ones with the really bad falls so that one’s reaction is torn between mirth and horror. He smiles placidly.

"And the fuck are you grinning at?!" Eren continues to rage.

Erwin shrugs. "Ours is just a continuation of the class war that has always existed. I cannot begrudge you your envy, when I, as the bourgeois flaunt my affluence before the proletariat--"

"Alright Karl Marx, hop off your soap box." Levi interrupts, probably before Eren can jump him. "You are not going to make him like you by spouting socialism. I barely like you when you do that."

Erwin grins at Eren as though Levi hadn't spoken at all. He has too straight teeth from braces. "Will you like me if I help you get those J’s I know you want, cheaper?"

Eren stops sneering.

At Eren’s nod Levi sighs loudly. "Oh my god, you're so easy."

Later, when Erwin is gone and Eren has settled on a pair of real TOMS instead of his J’s, that Erwin somehow managed to talk down to thirty dollars, _with_ added coupons, he crawls onto Levi’s bed and rests his chin against Levi’s ribs. "Real talk, though." He broaches. "He’s not one of us, you know? He isn't gonna get us."

Levi snorts and ruffles Eren’s hair. "Trust me." He assures. "He gets us."

*

Kenny knows. Kenny has to know. There’s no way he can’t notice the new skirts Mikasa produces, or the new jewellery she wears. He knows they are stolen, but he never says anything. He merely regards her new things, grunts and says: "I didn’t buy that for you."

"Levi got it." Mikasa answers drolly. She doesn't specify how, and Kenny doesn't ask.

"It’s not like he can say shit either way." Levi stirs at a pot of soup on the stove at Eren’s house. Kenny has forgotten to buy groceries again, and they haven’t seen him for a couple weeks, so they eat at Eren’s house and pitch in by doing chores in return. "He’s a fucking criminal, too, I know it. That’s why we live in this shit hole. He doesn't care what I do, so long as I don't get caught and cause him problems."

Eren hums, toasting slices of bread to go with their soup. "Will you ever tell him?"

"Hell no. You think I want a whipping?"

"If you told Uncle Kenny all the stuff we got up to, he’d probably give you a proud pat on the back before he whipped you." Mikasa sets the table, carefully aligning the cutlery with the plates, just like she learned in grade ten home economics.

"I think Ma would just straight up kill me." Eren puts the toasted bread on a plate and puts more in the toaster, crumbs flaking off as he butters the bread. "She caught me in that hoodie right, and asked me where I got it."

"What’d you tell her?"

"That Levi left it for me because he bought it too big." Eren sighs dramatically. "She gave me the dryest fucking look. Like, she didn't believe me at all."

"Of course she didn’t." Levi retorts, bringing over the pot of soup. "She’s not stupid. And besides, you probably gave her that dumb look you get when you lie, like a little dope."

"I can’t help it! She makes this face and I know she knows, so I’d better watch my damn mouth, it freaks me out every time. Mikasa get the cheese."

"You offered her a foot rub right after, didn’t you?" Mikasa rummages in the drawer for the grater.

"I feel guilty lying to her!" Eren wails.

"Ha. Everytime without fail, you kiss up to her when she catches you in a lie."

"It works, she thinks I’m cute."

Mikasa snorts. "Nothing could make you cute."

"Alright, homie, another comment and I’ll leave you to starve." Eren sneers.

Mikasa snorts again. "You say that every time I shade you."

*

“Eren.” Erwin sidles up to him like a snake in the grass, eyes flashing and devious. Eren’s lip curls in anticipation of whatever he has to say. “Wanna come with me to the mall?”

“Why?” Eren asks suspiciously.

Erwin looks around like someone might be listen and leans down. “I need your help getting a gift for Levi’s birthday.” Eren gives him a dumbfounded look. Frankly, they celebrate birthdays to the barest minimum. “I haven’t been dating him long enough to know what he likes. I figured you or Mikasa could help me--”

“But Mikasa probably just gave you a salty look, so you decided come to me?” Eren infers incredulously. Eren sighs at Erwin’s pleading look; he didn’t think anyone but Armin could work the big blue puppy dog eyes, but here he is, falling prey to it as always. “What’s in it for me?”

“The mall we’re going to has a shop that sells Jordans, and is currently having a sale. I promised you J’s before; this time we’ll actually get them.” Eren narrows his eyes at him and inspects his cunning expression.

“If you’re shitting me…” he threatens.

Erwin crosses his heart like the dweeb he is. “Scout’s honour.”

They climb in his car and, due to some mess on one side of the parking lot involving the police and a whole lot of gawking kids, they have to exit at the other end.

“Holy shit.” Erwin breathes when they pass by a block of complexes, leaning forward. It’s strange to hear Erwin swear, it comes out of his mouth all wrong.  “Yooo,” he drawls, “They pimped out that fucking park, man, we never had a sea-saw!” Eren shoots him a look, eyes wide.

“You played at _this_ park?” He points out the window at the dingy little courtyard parkette where the kids from the apartment complexes gather to trade candy like cocaine.

“Hell yeah.” Erwin smiles, and now there is another layer bleeding into his accent, stripping away his purebred proper speech like bleach. “Building twelve, right there. I used to meet up with my gang here.”

“Why does it not surprise me you ran a playground gang?” But that’s a lie, it does surprise him that he had a playground gang; it surprises him that Erwin managed to have friends at all as a kid, but most importantly, it surprises him that bougie-ass-fuck-boy Erwin Smith lived in building twelve, in the same shit hole of a neighbourhood Eren’s lived in all his life.

“We used to jump other kids for trading on our turf, and we’d demand percentages of all candy.” Erwin smiles, nostalgia clinging to him.

“The hell? You were running some kind of eight-year-old mafia?” Erwin grins so wide and at last pulls out of the parking lot, and starts driving towards the mall. “You can’t just drop shit like this on me and not explain. How do you go from dealing black market pop rocks to five different pairs of TOMS?”

Erwin shrugs, but his expression sobers. “My dad died when I was small, and my mom struggled. We lived here for a really long time, and then she met some rich guy through her work, and married him.”

Eren whistles. “Get it ma.” He says, saluting.

Erwin chuckles. “I really hated him. I hated that he was rich, I hated that he thought he could just swoop in and make my mom forget all about my dad and cover it all up with money, like he never existed, or that what we had before him didn’t matter.” Eren swallows thickly and says nothing, because he didn’t think he’d ever really come to understand Erwin in anyway, certainly not the way Levi seemed to. “I thought he thought I was some ghetto little white kid trying to be black.”

“But?”

“He’s a genuinely nice guy who makes my mother happy.” Erwin smiles, but Eren doesn’t think he can smile back, there’s something about the expression that’s hollow. “That’s why… I understood why you didn't like me. I get it. It was just the same damn thing over again.”

Eren doesn’t ask Erwin to explain. He understands. “Sorry.” he mumbles after a few quiet moments, for lack of anything better to say.

Later, Erwin will sit beside him on the bench of the store as he looks at his feet in J’s worth three hundred dollars, and convince him those are the ones he wants, and he won’t settle on the ugly one hundred and forty dollar ones just because they are cheaper. He will purposefully scuff a pair of shoes to get them cheaper, and then haggle them down further from there, and _then_ slap a couple coupons down on top of that. Eren will change Erwin’s ringtone in his phone to 23, right there on the spot, and chants _J’s on my feet_ the whole way home.

Later, he will say to Levi, “Yeah he gets us,” when he gets in from work and Levi will smile, a rare little thing, and not say anything at all.

*

“You little shit!” Levi’s voice carries from the kitchen, and in response, Mikasa turns her music up all the louder. “You have punked me for literal years over being white man’s whore, but here you are, bringing home fifty shades of mayonnaise--”

“First of all, I don’t want to date him. And, I’ll have you know he’s Metis!” Eren shouts back. “That’s an ethnicity, so ha! You’re still resident white man’s whore.”

“God Eren, you uncultured swine.” Jean’s voice joins the braying. Mikasa shoots them all a filthy look and begins dramatically untangling her headphone wires. “It’s pronounced _meh-tee_ , not matey, you fucking ass.”

“That’s what I said.”

Levi storms out of the kitchen moments later, plopping himself down on the couch, leaving them alone. Jean idly fiddles with the grocery store flyers on the kitchen table, stacked separately from a pile of bills, and among the receipts and tax forms finds a deluxe edition CD.

“Where the hell did you get this? I thought you said it was too expensive to drop money on?”

Eren snorts a quiet sound and cracks an egg into the pan. “Levi too teef.”

There is a tense and awkward pause behind him, and it feels like ice water spilling down his spine. He hates the sensation. “What?” Jean asks, all laughter has leaked out of his voice, leaving it with a hard edge Eren’s never heard before.

“Nothing, forget about it.”

“No. You said _Levi too teef_. What’s that mean?” He waits expectantly, but Eren doesn’t answer, because he can’t. The egg sizzles on the stove before him, and he idly pokes the yoke until it bleeds yellow. “What’s that mean, Eren? That he stole it?”

“What if he did?” Eren snaps, whirling around to face Jean now because he can’t just listen to Jean’s accusations with his back turned like a coward. Jean’s brows furrow deeply, like he expected Eren to deny it. “What’s it matter if he stole it?”

“That’s wrong, and you know it.”

“Are you…” Eren is so astounded for a moment he can’t even force out the words. “Are you judging me right now?”

“Hell yeah I’m judging you. You just told me your friend breaks the law! And it’s kinda sounding like you do, too.”

“Fuck the law!” Eren growls back. “The law’s never done shit for me! And fuck you for thinking you can come into my house and judge me!”

“Why didn’t you just, oh I don’t know, buy it? Like a normal, non-criminal person?”

“With what fucking money, Kirstein?” Eren gestures at the kitchen with it’s cracked tiles and leaky faucet, they speak for themselves, and Jean's mouth tightens, something like realization in the glimmer of his eyes before he slams down on it hard and forges ahead anyway. “Where the fuck am I gonna pull money from for a forty-five dollar album, huh?”

“If you can’t afford it Jaeger, don’t buy it. It’s that simple. Stealing’s illegal, you can get in trouble--”

“Where the hell do you think the three of us would be if we didn’t steal?” Jean has no answer to that, but the hard slant of his eyes says it doesn’t matter to him either way, self-righteous as he is. “My mother has been working two and a half jobs my entire life. I go days without seeing her face or hearing her voice, and there’s still not enough, not for the things I _need_ , never mind want, and you think _you_ can judge me? I feel guilty when-- ”

“Eren.” Levi cuts in, before some dam breaks inside of Eren and all his struggles come pouring out onto this poor judgmental idiot’s head like a tidal wave eighteen years in the making. He shakes with rage, and Mikasa materializes beside him, steady and comforting. He sniffles back his tears. “You need to leave.” Levi says to Jean. Jean opens his mouth, but Levi silences him with a look. “People who don’t understand us don’t get to stay.”

The egg is hopelessly burnt. Mikasa turns off the stove, rubbing Eren’s back all the time. Eren scrubs furiously at his face, hoping to erase the threat of tears. He doesn't watch Jean leave. “I thought he would get us. He-- He seemed like he would you know?” Neither of them respond, Levi scrapes the burnt egg off the pan and Mikasa hums some soothing tune in the back of her throat.

“You win some, you lose some.” Levi says, washing out the pan and setting it back on the stove; the water hisses when it touches the hot burner. “Today you lost some. Don’t think about it too much.”

*

Armin practices the art of wilful ignorance like his life depends on it. He hates to go shopping with the crew, hates when they hold up things they know for a fact he wants and offer to get it for him. He always says no, and they always pick him up something anyway. They give him their trinkets as gifts for his birthday and Christmas and every other gift-giving occasion they can think of, and he accepts the gifts then, because a gift is a gift and how it was obtained is none of his business.

"Armin, if you really don't want me caught you're gonna have to stop acting like a nervous wreck." Eren hisses, dragging Armin out of the store by his arm, trying to adjust the uncomfortable scratch of things he's shoved beneath his hoodie.

"I can't help it, she was looking right at us--"

Suddenly Hange barrels into them and shoves a bag into Armin’s hands. "Cottontail." She hisses, and she’s gone again, leaving Armin with his illicitly procured purchases in a large Siren’s bag.

"Fuck." Eren says, and drags Armin into some nook to dump what he has in Armin’s bag.

"What--" Armin watches a security guard pace by, no doubt looking for Hange. "What’d you do--"

"Take this and go to the washroom in the food court. Erwin will find you and take you to the car."

"But--" Armin trembles, plastic crumpling between his knuckled fists. "What if--"

"No one will try and stop you, Hitler’s ideal. Trust me." Eren assures. "Just get to Erwin and you'll be fine." He doesn’t have time to say anything else. He pushes Armin in the general direction of the food court and takes off at a fast pace towards the parking lot, hissing a litany of curses below his breath.

He meets Levi by the door and looks furtively around for Hange. "Gave her the keys, she’s out at the car." He answers before Eren can ask, holding the door open for him.

"What the hell happened?" Eren demands when they get to the car. Hange has curled herself up into a little ball, and a security guard peers out of the doors, waiting for anything suspicious. Levi ducks behind the car.

"I didn’t realize I was being followed, I just wasn't fucking smooth enough, and I felt someone grab my arm so I stepped on their toe and fucking ran." Hangr gets out in a rush. Her eyes are feverish and bright, like she can't quite believe this would happen to her.

"We were in the same store, and I saw her do it, and someone started walking towards me too so I stashed my shit with Erwin and fucking dipset." Levi elaborates.

When Erwin and Armin make it out later, shopping bags draped over their arms casually, they look like a pair of loaded siblings out for a shopping spree. The car is already running, and Erwin drives while Levi and Hange duck in Eren’s lap in the back seat. "Well." Erwin cuts into the silence when they get onto the highway. He’s grinning luridly, his fingers tight on the wheel. "That was exhilarating, don't you think?"

"I nearly pissed myself." Armin squeaks.

"You’re a fucking pervert," Levi grunts at Erwin, righting himself. "Did you get off on that? No wonder poor Armin’s as white as sour cream, if you’ve been giving him that creepy-ass face this whole time." They bicker, but Hange remains curled up in Eren’s lap, stiff with shame.

Armin looks at Eren in the mirror. "Please don’t ever put me through anything like that again."

Eren can only shrug, he can't make any promises. Instead he says, "Occupational hazard."

"Anyone wanna check out my haul?" Erwin calls back, indicating vaguely at his bag with one hand as he merges into another lane.

"What haul?" Eren blanches, he tips over the bag. "Did you fucking snake shit from HMV, you goddamn criminal?" Erwin beams like the sun, looking so damn proud of himself. Eren shakes out a green sweater vest barely large enough to fit Erwin’s arm. It would look good on Armin.  "And did you jack the entire fucking dollar store? You're so fucking smooth."

"I was smooth once." Hange bemoans from her place in Eren’s lap. He thinks she’s crying, and he fishes a pixie stick out of Erwin’s bag of treats for her. "I once stole a whole fucking chicken from the grocery store. But fucking--"

"No ones mad at you Pe-- Hange." Levi rifles around leisurely for candy.

"I’m mad at me!" She snaps.

"Well then, get over yourself. It’s not like we have Erwin currently trying to bullshit his way out of paying bail for you. Today’s a win."

"I guess."

Levi rolls his eyes while Eren just pets Hange’s head. "Eat your pixie stick and look at your new lipstick and be happy."

"Okay." She pouts.

* 

Levi’s protective older brother streak runs as long as the Nile. Mikasa couldn’t care less. Levi would prefer he got whatever Mikasa wants without her getting her hands dirty. Mikasa goes out of her way to disobey him, tucking tubes of lipstick and mascara into her bra, blatantly slipping rings onto her fingers and walking out like she owns them.

Eren’s fairly sure she only does it because she knows it drives Levi crazy.

There’s an elegance to her style of theft; she takes things like they belong to her, like they were meant to be hers and are only going back to their rightful place. To put Annie and Mikasa’s relationship in the same lame, and poetic light, Mikasa probably did the exact same thing to Annie’s heart; she took it like she had the rights to it with barely a backward glance.

Levi eyes Annie in a way not unlike how Eren first looked at Erwin, except that this time the dislike is instant, and mutual, and Levi isn’t half as much of a brand whore that is easily bought off. He purses his lips, because technically Annie is perfect, polite and respectful and quiet and this underhanded side of shady that means she’ll fit in perfectly. Eren likes her off the bat.

“I don’t think he actually dislikes her.” Mikasa’s bland tone of voice is tripping some line between nonchalant and hopeful. She turns to Eren. “He doesn’t dislike her, does he?”

“Given I think they are about to start wrestling each other right now without any provocation, yeah, I think he actually dislikes her.” Mikasa’s shoulders slump, mouth turning down a little. Eren regrets being honest with her, wishes he could make it better. “I like her, though.”

“You do?”

“Hell yeah. It’s clear you guys are sickeningly in love; it’s pretty disgusting.” Mikasa snorts a soft sound. She twists a new ring around her marriage finger. It’s a simple fake gold band, so ill fitting with her style. “What’s that?”

“Annie got it for me.” Mikasa’s voice is so soft and infatuated, Eren blinks a little, because he said they were in love, but he didn’t actually mean it. On the other hand, he’s never seen anyone inspire that kind of genuine affection before, so that Mikasa’s whole face is open and gentle. “She stole it. She’d never stolen before but she did it.”

“Wow, that’s devotion.” Now that he’s looking, there’s a matching one on Annie’s finger. He can’t imagine that kind of devotion to another person, the thought doesn’t appeal to him. But seeing Mikasa so quietly happy is worth all the stolen rings on the planet and all the stars in the universe to him. “I’ll make Levi come around.”

“I think it’s just… he’s not comfortable with the idea of me growing up, you know?” Mikasa twists her ring again, and Eren nods along. “I think he wants me to be the kid he stole Starbursts for, always.”

Eren doesn’t say that sometimes he misses the days when it was just  the three of them, parting ways with Armin at the bus stop and stopping in the convenience store on the way home. “He’ll come around. He doesn’t have a choice.”

Nothing ever stays the same.

*

“Someday, we won’t need to live like this anymore.” Wrapping paper crinkles all around Levi in shades of green and red. They make a big, happy family around Christmas time, even if their parents are missing. Hanji Snapchats them from family parties, in a glittering sari, blatantly smoking weed with her cousins and wishing Levi a happy birthday, and they respond with horrible renditions of Christmas carols.

Maybe someday, they won’t have to live like this anymore, Eren thinks as he watches Armin hold up a familiar green sweater vest for everyone to ooo and aah at, and thank Erwin sweetly, even as his face screams “see no evil, hear no evil.” Maybe someday--

“Eren’s gonna get his restaurant, and Armin’s gonna be a swag professor at some university, and Annie and Mikasa will be in some strange committed polyamorous lesbian relationship and we won’t be this.” Levi gestures all around him. He is probably drunk, because otherwise he would never sound so sappy.

“What about you?” Erwin prompts. “What about Jean?”

“Me?” Levi hums. “I’m gonna drop a rap album and marry rich.”

“Yeah? Me?” Erwin leans in for a kiss and Levi shoves his face away.

“God no, what would I want to be stuck with you for the rest of my life for?”

“Why is no one recording this?” Mikasa mutters. Her voice is muffled behind the twenty different scarves she has wrapped around her neck, and she looks far more pleased about it then she really should.

“Because it’s disgusting.” Eren replies shortly.

“So, what about me? Where’s my fortune?” Jean asks, nudging Levi’s calf with his knee.

“Well, we all know why you made up after that fight…” Levi studies him, squinting a little. He is definitely drunk. “You’ll go wherever Eren goes because you want his dick so bad, so I guess you better learn how to cook.”

Jean flushes and splutters, but the red of his cheeks is offset by the multicoloured lights on his face. “I don’t want his dick!”

“You want his dick a little bit.” Annie says.

“A lot.” Mikasa adds.

“You can admit it, Jean,” Erwin joins. “You’re among friends.”

Jean’s eyes skitter to Eren’s and away again, but Eren merely raises a brow at him. “Even if I did, which I’m not saying I do, but if I _did_ , Eren has made it perfectly clear he’s not interested in my dick so--” but he can’t get anything else out because everyone is howling with laughter, and Jean looks a little like he wants to become an ornament on their cheap little christmas tree.

“It’s okay, Kirstein, if I ever started wanting dick, you’d be third on my list.”

“Who’re the first two?” Jean asks, offended.

Eren snorts. “Armin out of loyalty, and Erwin for that ass and them cheekbones.” The curl of Jean’s pouting mouth clearly says he can’t even argue his choices.

Satisfied with the laughter ringing out around him, Eren leans back against the coffee table. Some day they won’t be this, and they won’t have to live the way they do, but right now, what they’ve got is good, and they’re merry as hell at someone else’s expense.

**Author's Note:**

> As always thanks to Mando for editing. here's to another 5k of mindless gen fic.


End file.
